Vandals caused several thousand dollars worth of water damage to a Huntington Beach church when they pried open a window and inserted a hose that soaked the sanctuary and damaged the pews, police said Saturday. Because of the vandalism, the Church of Christ on Huntington Street won't hold services today, and probably will be closed for the week, officials said. "This flood has put us out of business for a while," said Pastor Frank Macy.

"I'm about to do it for the first time," chirps goofy Mormon missionary Elder Cunningham. "And I'm gonna do it with a girl!" The young man in a white shirt and tie isn't singing about a lusty encounter, but a holy rite of passage in "Baptize Me," a bubbly show tune in the Broadway phenomenon "The Book of Mormon. " "I just died during that part," said Joanna Brooks, author of "The Book of Mormon Girl: Stories From an American Faith," recalling the first time she heard the cast album.

August 22, 1999 | MARTIN GARDNER, Martin Gardner is the author of numerous books, including "The Healing Revelations of Mary Baker Eddy." His most recent book, "Visitors From Oz," is a fantasy about the adventures of Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Woodman in the United States

From the jacket and frontispiece of Gillian Gill's massive, impeccably researched biography, a haunting photo of Mary Baker Eddy, taken when she was a young widow, stares at you. Her gaunt face, especially her enormous eyes, seem tinged with suffering, perhaps also with madness.

John Norman still remembers being excluded from birthday parties and Boy Scouts events when he was growing up in the mostly Mormon city of Logan, in northern Utah. The memories hurt. Now a Catholic priest, Norman exemplifies the feelings and frustrations of Utah's non-Mormon minority. "They just didn't recognize that their actions left people out," Norman said. Whether they grew up here or moved to Utah from elsewhere, non-Mormons say they often feel oppressed and must struggle to be heard.

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Mormons targeted The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused several Utah residents of operating a Ponzi scheme that victimized members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a Dec. 29 lawsuit filed in federal court in Utah, the SEC alleged that Joseph Nelson and his associates targeted investors at church functions, telling them they could double their money if they invested with Nelson's companies.

Kelly Clark, an Oregon attorney who won a nearly $20-million judgment for a sex abuse victim against the Boy Scouts of America and forced the organization to release secrets on pedophiles contained in its so-called perversion files, has died. He was 56. A resident of Portland, Ore., Clark died Dec. 17 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., said Paul Mones, Clark's friend and co-counsel in the case. Doctors were in the process of diagnosing Clark's condition when he died. Clark was one of the most prominent American attorneys who fought for childhood victims of sexual abuse - bringing and winning cases against the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Boy Scouts of America.

They weren't looking to make a political statement or to be pioneers of gender liberation. Each just wanted a familiar, decent roommate rather than a stranger after their original roommates left to study abroad. That's how Pitzer College sophomores Kayla Eland, female, and Lindon Pronto, male, began sharing a room this semester on Holden Hall's second floor. They are not a couple and neither is gay. They are just compatible roommates in a new, sometimes controversial, dormitory option known as gender-neutral housing that is gaining support at some colleges in California and across the nation.

R. H. Edwin Espy, 84, a former general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ and a longtime leader in the ecumenical movement. Espy joined the council in 1955 as its associate executive secretary and was general secretary from 1963 to 1973, a period when the council provoked great controversy with its support for civil rights.

Dave McKibben's article (Oct. 8) about Leon Vickers leaving Stanford and a possible pro football career to pursue his "faith" was interesting but left a wrong impression. For nearly 20 years, I have been an ordained "mainstream" Church of Christ minister. The article correctly stated that the Garden Grove group Vickers attends is "not connected to the more mainstream Churches of Christ." Despite this, the cult expert in the article called the Church of Christ "not a safe group."

St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church of Glendale has bought the former First Church of Christ, Scientist building at 500 S. Central Ave. for $3 million. Spokesmen for Thomas Realty Co. Inc., which represented the seller, said Glendale's First and Second Churches of Christ, Scientist have bought land in the 1300 block of North Brand Boulevard for construction of a shared facility. Meanwhile, both congregations will worship at the Second Church's building at 1020 W. Kenneth Road.